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Monday, December 12, 2011

A Few Things You Probably Didn't Know About Ron Paul

The Truth about the Internet's Favorite Politician Revealed...

Texas politician/scumbag exemplar Ron Paul (R - for reprehensible prick) is one of my generation’s most confounding cultural icons. For reasons that are beyond all possible human comprehension, that anthropomorphic Chicken McNugget-looking cretin has become one of the most beloved and embraced campus figures of the 21st century, the Gen-Y/Millennial equivalent of a Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn.

When I say I’m perplexed by his popularity, I really freaking mean it: since 2007, I’ve relentlessly tried to understand his appeal to my generation, and a good half decade later, the only rationale I can think of is the exact same rationale I figured was the locus of his admiration all those years ago: he’s in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.

Of course, the pothead contingency is a pretty sizable special interest group. Well, would be is perhaps a better statement, since most of them are too baked to pull their duffs off the futon to go and vote, anyway. But that’s not the only niche group of horribly misguided teenagers and young adults that Paul has a fan base in - the dude’s so Objectivist that he named his son, another chancre sore on the mouth of American politics, after the worst science-fiction writer this side of L. Ron Hubbard.

And so, Paul managed to unite the two lowliest subcultures in the country’s collegiate system into an unholy voters’ bloc that’s willing to starve out the poor and tax-break the rich like mofos in the name of ganj and Ayn Rand. A lot of times, we like to debate which cultural institution has the most simple-minded of followers. Well, I think it’s pretty much a given that Paul has the largest army of lunkheads, patsies and Asperger’s-prone ne’er-do-wells under his thumb since the glory days of Kiss - and a lot like the “hottest band on earth,” Paul’s shtick is all theatrics and zero resonance.

If you’re in college these days - whether it’s a technical school or a state university - odds are, you’ll encounter somebody doling out Paul-propaganda on a weekly basis. If they’re not leaving Xeroxed fliers all over the cafeteria, they’re probably scrawling advertisements on the bathroom walls. Like a bunch of right-leaning cockroaches, theirs is a species that it is next to impossible to eradicate. In fact, the only two places you probably won’t find Paul-aganda on campus is next to the soap dispenser or the graduation sign up sheet. Their stinky, unwashed reach is quite impressive, really.

Honestly, if you’ve seen one piece of Paul-aganda, you’ve seen them all. They list a whole bunch of Chuck Norris-like facts about the man(?), like the fact that he’s “never ever voted for a tax increase” or “that he delivered 400 plus babies as an OB-GYN” or that he’s the only candidate for President “in favor of decriminalizing drug addiction.”

Clearly, there’s a lot of info on such sheets, and some of the stuff listed is even true, like the fact that Ron Paul is indeed a carbon based life form. Just about everything else you hear about him, however, is most likely grandiose embellishing from a gaggle of Cheetoh-dust-fingered general education majors, the kinds of people that base their political ideology on old Star Trek episodes and Bioware games.

As a man that sure does love him some balanced coverage, I decided to go out there on the Internet and compile a fact sheet of my own about good old Ronny. As it turns out, there’s a lot of blemishes on his record that, for some peculiar reason, you never hear anyone talking about. You know, like the fact that he published a newsletter accusing Martin Luther King, Jr. of being a chi-mo, or that he wanted to use federal dollars to spruce up Houston movie theaters, or that he's a closeted Christian fundy, or that his head is filled with more conspiratorial nonsense than an Alex Jones / Oliver Stone dinner conversation. With that in mind, here's some MORE stuff about Ron Paul I guarantee you won't be seeing on any fliers circulated around your college campus in the ensuing months...

He Once Published a Newsletter That Contained Some…Well, Not Very Nice Comments about Black People

Back in the ‘80s, just about every lunatic fringe political personality on the planet had a national newsletter, from religious cuckoos like Pat Robertson to race-baiters like David Duke. Not surprisingly, Ronny P had his own newsletter as well – which included some, ahem, interesting quotes and quips about the African American community in the U.S.

For example, did you know that roving gangs of black teenagers are bigger threats to America than Al Qaeda?

Or that MLK was a hate-mongering Communist?

The author of the above diatribe also suggested a few whimsical names for a hypothetical city named after Martin Luther King, Jr. Among them? “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis.” You know, the affable, jovial kind of playful kidding we can all get behind.

But at least the penman doesn’t encourage shooting black people or anything like that. Well, wait a sec…

And believe me, there are TONS more from where that came from, including passages that allude to black teenagers being genetically conditioned to commit crime as well as an upcoming race war that was supposed to take place sometime in the 1990s.

The big question here is whether Ron Paul was the actual author of such incendiary tracts. Although this may be shocking to a lot of people, Ron Paul has flip-flopped numerous times, saying that he was the author of the articles in 1996 before saying that the articles were penned by a ghost writer in 2001 to saying that the articles didn’t even exist in 2008 (HINT: they did.)

Even if Paul didn’t pen the articles, he at least knew who was in charge of publishing the material, a guy named Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr., who served as the V.P. of Ron Paul & Associates, the organization that owned Paul’s two newsletters the Ron Paul Political Report and the not-at-all ominously titled Ron Paul Survival Report.

And to show you just how much Paul has distanced himself from any unsightly associations with the newsletters, that Llewellyn guy – you know, the guy that had executive editorial control over his newsletter contents – remains a member of Ron’s campaign advising committee to this very day.

Come to think of it, maybe he hasn’t moved away from it all that much, after all.

When It Comes To Government Spending, He’s a Through-and-Through Hypocrite

Ron Paul, the Libertarian-Tea Party ideal he is, seems to make it an effort to remind everybody on the planet that he opposes government spending at all possible junctures– in fact, he’s so adamant about “small government” that he even voted AGAINST funding Hurricane Katrina relief…not that it’s really helping out his afore-mentioned race relations problems or anything.

However, in 2006, it was revealed that Paul’s congressional district received more than $4 BILLION in federal government funds for just the first nine months of the ‘06 FY…and a Houston Chroniclefollow-up uncovered that Paul sponsored 10 earmarks in a water resources bill that would’ve directly benefited his district.

A year later, Paul requested65 earmarks (the highest of ANY Houston-based congressman) from the feds, which would benefit such vital services as movie house renovations and shrimp marketing re-branding, at the same time he was pushing for the dissolution of such needless institutions as the Department of Education and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Of course there’s only one thing more hypocritical than being a champion of “small government” and raking in billions of fed dollars annually: being a champion of “states’ rights” when your state pulls in over $1.2 trillion a year in federal aid and contracts.

Looking at Mr. Paul’s spending ideologies, it seems to me that he has more in common with a Harvey Dent than he does the Jefferson Smith his Internet cronies make him up out to be.

His "Restore America" Plan Would Destroy the Country

As with seemingly all Republican candidates jogging for the U.S. presidency, Mr. Paul has his own economic recovery plan for the nation - which, not surprisingly, seems more like an initiative to starve out the sub-middle class more than a legitimate attempt to rectify the country's economic woes.

You can check out Paul's blueprint here, but if you want the Cliff Notes version, here's my best attempt to turn his rantings and ravings into something that resembles legible English:

First, off he wants to lower the corporate tax rate (even though, as we will soon find out, he doesn't want the nation collecting any sort of income tax whatsoever), and eliminate capitals gain and estate taxes. You know, because in a nation with a quarter of its population underemployed, protecting the already-secured economic interests of the elite is our nation's most pressing concern - especially when you note that the money lost on tax breaks for the rich last year totaled $1.2 trillion in revenue. By the way, did you know that the amount of money the IRS brought in last year was only $1.1 trillion, right?

Hey, and how does $600 billion worth of budget cuts from mandatory spending programs, like unemployment insurance, sound? Well, I hope you like it, because it's just the tip of the iceberg - additionally, he wants to cut $95 billion from Medicaid, $50 billion from food stamps, and $7 billion from child nutrition programs. Hey, the children are our future, after all...

The FAA and TSA? Both need to be privatized. That's about $45 billion saved right there. Of course, it would also put about a million or so people out of work, but what the hell ever. In a move that's sure to piss off hardcore conservatives, he also wants to cut almost $200 billion in defense expenditures. . .but seeing as how the military is already leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment in Iraq this December, maybe that's an initiative they'll just take up on their own dime.

Apparently, we're spending WAY too much on unimportant things, like food and drug safety, disease research and making sure poor people don't freeze to death during winter - that's why R.P. wants to cut about $17 billion in funding for the FDA, the CDC and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Oh, and energy, urban development and education? EFF THAT PANSY SHIT. If Paul had has way, we'd just do away with the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development AND Education, saving us about $173 billion in annual spending.

All in all, Ron Paul's proposed federal cuts would easily total around one trillion dollars, which would automatically knock out about 7 percent of the GDP in one fell swoop...you know, which is roughly the same amount of damage done to the economy DURING the recession. And if Paul's clamor to abolish the IRS comes to fruition, that's ANOTHER 7 percent chipped off our Gross Domestic Product. . .meaning that Paul's "economic recovery" package would end up eliminating nearly a quarter of the country's GDP.

Now, you may be asking yourself exactly how bringing the GDP down an additional 14 percentage points from what it is NOW fixes the economy. Well, the answer is pretty clear: it doesn't. It's a confusing picture, but by the time we get to the END of this article, his reasoning(?) will somewhat begin to make sense. SPOILER: Actually, no, it still won't.

He's a Closet Fundamentalist Christian Nutcase

Now here's something you don't hear about too often: a guy claiming to be a "Reagan conservative" (despite calling him his sworn enemy in 1988) that's ALSO a religious kook. Yeah, a weird combination, I know.

Paul, an evangelical Baptist, says that he's a proponent of the Constitution, but apparently, he never figured out that the First Amendment sort of said church and state ought to be, you know, not the same thing.

"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s
Christian heritage." - Ron Paul, (Dec. 30, 2003)

That, and apparently, he thinks organized religion gets right what federal government doesn't...

Both conservatives and liberals cannot understand that the Pope’s pronouncements were theological, not political. He was one of the few humans on earth who could not be bullied or threatened by any government. He was a man of God, not a man of the state. He was not a policy maker, but rather a steward of long-established Catholic doctrine. His mission was to save souls, not serve the political agendas of any nation, party, or politician.

To the secularists, this was John Paul II’s unforgivable sin – he placed service to God above service to the state. Most politicians view the state, not God, as the supreme ruler on earth. They simply cannot abide a theology that does not comport with their vision of unlimited state power. This is precisely why both conservatives and liberals savaged John Paul II when his theological pronouncements did not fit their goals. But perhaps their goals simply were not godly.
Unlike most political leaders, the Pope understood that both personal and economic liberties are necessary for human virtue to flourish. Virtue, after all, involves choices. Politics and government operate to deny people the freedom to make their own choices.

The Pope’s commitment to human dignity, grounded in the teachings of Christ, led him to become an eloquent and consistent advocate for an ethic of life, exemplified by his struggles against abortion, war, euthanasia, and the death penalty. Yet what institutions around the world sanction abortion, war, euthanasia, and the death penalty? Governments.

Historically, religion always represented a threat to government because it competes for the loyalties of the people. In modern America, however, most religious institutions abandoned their independence long ago, and now serve as cheerleaders for state policies like social services, faith-based welfare, and military aggression in the name of democracy. Few American churches challenge state actions at all, provided their tax-exempt status is maintained. This is why Washington politicians ostensibly celebrate religion – it no longer threatens their supremacy. Government has co-opted religion and family as the primary organizing principle of our society. The federal government is boss, and everybody knows it. But no politician will ever produce even a tiny fraction of the legacy left by Pope John Paul II. - Ron Paul, (Apr. 12, 2005)

Ron has said that he was a proponent of prayer in school on numerous occasions. Now, evolution, on the other hand - well, he's not so enthusiastic there.

But as he's said numerous times, he supports such measures NOT because of his religious convictions, but because he believes in the sanctity of the Constitution. . .which is probably why he co-sponsored a resolution to AMEND THE CONSTITUTION to allow school prayer...on seven separate occasions.

With a guy like Paul, the problem isn't pinpointing illogical spots in his political oeuvre as much as it is finding a way to fit all of them in one conversation. Do you begin with the fact that he wants to give federal funding to home schoolers and private schools while disestablishing the Department of Education, or do you begin with the fact that he thinks the U.N. is an international attempt to destroy American exceptionalism? Do you call into question his stance on border security or the fact that he's opposed to network neutrality? The rub here should be glaringly apparent: there's so much asininity flowing out of this guy that I reckon we're ALL in danger of drowning in his absurd proposals.

Let's begin with the guy's economic beliefs. We've already talked about his budget proposals, but there's another aspect of his "financial recovery" plan, too - namely, the fact that he wants to eliminate the IRS.

To the laiety, that sounds like a really good proposal. The problem is, eliminating the IRS would also eliminate about 1.1 trillion dollars in federal income...the equivalent to taking a 7 percent chunk out of the entire country's gross domestic product. However, where things get REALLY fruit-cakey is when you start mulling over Paul's proposed alternative revenue streams for the nation.

Paul, like a lot of people that know how to con the working class out of their dinero, is a proponent of the so called FairTax, a taxation system that repeals the income tax with an "across-the-board" 23 percent sales tax on all products within the U.S. The idea (and by idea, I mean the inverse of what it actually does) is that it allows workers to keep MORE of their income, with the federal sales tax funding everything else.

The problem? A little thing called mathematics.

Let's say you make $23,000 a year. With the current tax system, the average American is getting billed about 30 percent in federal, state and local taxes, leaving the median 'Merican with about $16,000 in earnings after tax season.

And then, there's Paul's incessant tomfoolery regarding the Federal Reserve and the gold standard. According to Paul and a ton of other conspiracy kooks, the Fed is an absolute inflation machine - despite the fact that in the 1990s, the head of the Federal Reserve was a dude that had economic convictions about deregulation and privatization that were virtually identical to Paul's and his followers. Of course, Paul's solution to the circulation of all this worthless currency is quite rational - he wants to revert back to the pre Civil War federal banking system. You know, back before we had credit cards, and the Internet, and PayPal, and indoor plumbing.

But alas, college kids aren't really known for doing the most logical of activities. And if nothing else, we can rest assured that no matter how crazy and kooky the nation's political spectrum gets, at least we know we'll never be insane enough as a culture to elect that bug-eyed prick to the Oval Office.

5 comments:

Wow. Like the guy or not it would take 5 minutes of research to discredit 90% of what you claim. This is full of outright inaccuracies. I won't say they are lies because maybe you have never read more than a few out of context quotes. Lies to discredit a person should at least be believable on the surface. I would at least hope your viewers/readers take a few minutes to do their own research.

hey man, i'm a young stoner/pothead but i'm not a ron paul supporter. not all of us stoners are supporters of that asshole ron paul. i want weed legalized, but not through fucking ron paul. he's a racist piece of shit and i hate him. i've hated him since 2007 also. i went to ucdavis and the town was littered with ron paul flyers saying "who is ron paul?" it pissed me off so much that all this trash was all over the place.

About Your Friendly Neighborhood Jimbo...

Greetings, Intraweb travelers! My name is Jimbo X (an unusual surname, I know...I think it's Greenlandic) and I'm your kindly proprietor of IIIA. You're probably wondering what the intent of this site is, so that makes two of us. I suppose it's an info-dump for all of the stuff that I find fascinating/irksome about American culture and society, so you'll find a nice jumble of high culture snobbery and low culture sleaze here. It's also a place for me to rant, rave and ramble about all sorts of things that matter and don't matter, so prepare yourself for some heavy-handed bloviating about politics and consumption. Well, that, and lots of stuff about video games and junk food. The things that matter the most obviously.